Homesick
by zelda49
Summary: CBPC Feb. [Brennancentric] Brennan may not like psychology, but these gray winter days always make her feel down. And the one thing she needs to cheer her up, she doesn't have.


A/N: This month's challenge was tough for me! I don't normally write in the first person because it's very limiting to the story, only being able to deal with what the character narrating the story is seeing/doing. And for the longest time, no ideas came to me at all--I thought perhaps I might just have to sit this one out. But this afternoon it snowed--big, giant flakes like we haven't seen all winter--and the lightbulb flickered on :-P Let me know what you think...

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It doesn't happen when I'm at the lab—too many things to do that require too much attention to worry about anything else. It doesn't happen when I'm with my friends, either. Angela and Jack and Booth and even Zack are so comforting to be around, each in his or her own way, that I don't notice it. It's when I'm alone during the gray days of winter that it hits me hardest. Days like today when the sky is overcast, the ground is bare, the grass and trees are dead and brown, and the temperature is cold enough to require winter coats and gloves but not cold enough to really do anything. Days like today when the world is ugly. 

These are the days when I get homesick.

I stare out the window of my car as I sit at a stoplight in an area away from the center of DC, where the drabness is more pronounced. Downtown there are buildings and monuments and traffic and people and noise to break up the dreariness, but out here things are more spread out, giving that same dreariness a place to settle in, to envelope everything before you have a chance to fight back. It's the same winter grayness that I hated so much in Chicago when I was a kid, before the snow fell and turned the dullness into a dazzling wonderland.

Snow in Washington, though, is a much rarer occurrence then it is up north, and I find myself longing for the merry flakes even though I know how unprepared the Baltimore-Washington Metro Area is for such precipitation. I know that traffic will snarl up with accidents and people driving insanely slow. I know that shops and stores and offices will close and send their employees home, increasing the volume on the roads and decreasing the supplies available for semi-panicked residents who worry about being trapped by a scant two or three inches. I know that there are barely enough snow plows and salt trucks to keep up with a few hours of the stuff and how much havoc it will wreak, but I wish for snow anyway. I miss it terribly.

The stoplight turns green and I accelerate down the dry pavement, my eyes roving over the barren lawns and parks as I pass them, and my heart sinks. I'm not sure why I feel so low this time of year, or why I want so desperately for snow to fall, because it only reminds me of my childhood and that makes me feel worse. Even the happy memories I have from before my parents disappeared are painful to me now, reminding me of what I once had, mocking the fact that I no longer have it. I want nothing more than to put my Chicago days behind me, to focus on my life as it is now in the District, but the bland landscape won't allow me to do so. It flashes by my windows and laughs mirthlessly at me. _The world is a lousy place, isn't it Temperance?_

I steel myself against the despondency that continues to grow inside me and concentrate instead on driving. I crank up the radio and try to find a station playing an upbeat song that I know so I can sing along, something Angela once said she does when she has a bad day. I spend the entire duration of the trip home looking for such a song, but I don't find one. It turns out that it doesn't matter, though. The mere act of searching has distracted me enough to get me home.

The music hunt also diverted my attention from something else. As I pull into the parking lot in front of my apartment building, I notice that my windshield is wet. I figure it's rain, because there has been no shortage of that this winter, and flip on the wipers to clear the glass. Finding my usual space, I park the car and gather my things: purse, keys, files for the current case, the takeout I picked up for dinner. I exit the car carefully, arms full, and maneuver my way onto the sidewalk. It's then that I realize the precipitation falling from the sky isn't rain.

It's snow.

I stand stock still for a moment, surprised into motionlessness by the fulfillment of my wish. It's so very rare in life that a person gets what they want, at least in my case, that I'm actually stunned by snow in winter. My neighbor passing by calls out to me, bringing me out of my shock, and I find my voice to call a hello back to him. My feet begin to move forward again, carrying me into my apartment where I carefully place my possessions in their proper places. I reach up to unzip my coat, but just as my fingers catch the zipper I find myself grabbing my keys instead and heading back out the door.

I stand there, in the middle of the grass in front of my building, studying the snow as it falls down around me. The flakes are large and fluffy, landing in my hair and on my jacket and eyelashes, and before I know it I'm smiling. The ground is quickly being coating with white, the deadness erased before my very eyes. The world is transforming from the depressing place I thought it to be into something that feels very much like home.

I'm not sure how long I stand out there in the yard, watching—_feeling_—the snow float steadily down from the sky, but with each flake the heaviness in my heart evaporates a little. By the time an inch had accumulated on the ground, my mind, my soul (if it exists), are lighter, the smile on my face wider. I throw my arms out and spin around, excited for the first time in weeks. I hear a familiar voice call my name, and my eyes dart to the parking lot where Booth is stepping from his SUV carrying his own box of takeout food.

"Bones! What are you doing?" he yells, clearly puzzled.

I realize he must have seen my little dance, but the snow has brought me a joyful peace that is far stronger than any embarrassment I would normally feel. Instead I merely smile at him, and I know my eyes are shining as I speak.

"It's snowing, Booth," I tell him cheerfully, as though that is explanation enough.

He is even more confused, drawing his eyebrows together as he tries to figure out what exactly that means. Then he notices the expression on my face, discovers the marked difference between this expression and the one I've been wearing, and decides he doesn't need to know what it means. He's just happy that I'm happy.

"Yeah, Bones," he grins back. "It's snowing."


End file.
